


Forgive Me, I Love You

by QueenofStarlight



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-25
Updated: 2018-02-25
Packaged: 2019-03-22 21:33:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13773024
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenofStarlight/pseuds/QueenofStarlight
Summary: Keith confesses to Lance, and Lance reacts badly. Then bad things happen to Keith and Lance has to deal with the fact it's all really his fault.M for Strong Language and Triggering Content (No NSFW)





	Forgive Me, I Love You

**Author's Note:**

> huehuehue

[ Keith ] (6:21 PM) Hey, you get off work in like four minutes, right? At 6:25?

[ Lance ] (6:22 PM) i’m off now

[ Lance ] (6:23 PM) person for the next shift came in early

[ Keith ] (6:24 PM) Oh, okay. I’m outside. Can we talk?

[ Lance ] (6:24) of course

That brief conversation had taken place a good few minutes ago - it’s now 6:31, Lance sees, glancing down at his phone as he approaches where Keith is leaning against a lamp post near the theatre where Lance works. It’s normal for Keith to show up outside Lance’s workplace; since they both lived in the same apartment building and work relatively close to one another, it makes sense that they would carpool to work when their schedules match up.

Tonight, however, something is very obviously wrong with Keith. Or not even wrong, really, just _different_. Lance can see it in the way his shoulders are tensed, arms shoved deep in the pockets of his jeans. As he gets closer, Lance can see that Keith is actually shaking slightly, though he attributes that to the fact Keith had neglected to bring a jacket when it’s already into the colder parts of Autumn. When Lance stops about a foot or two away from Keith, his friend refuses to look him in the eye, gaze flickering between him and the sidewalk below.

“Hey, Keith. What did you wanna talk about?” Lance asks, shooting him a soft smile.

Keith fidgets a bit, the toe of one shoe scraping against the concrete, and meets Lance’s gaze for but a moment before turning to stare at something across the street.

“I uh...have something I wanna tell you. Since you said you’re gonna be busy after tonight.” Keith says.

Lance nods; he really had said that. Thanksgiving is in a couple of days, and business at the theatre spikes over any holiday with the increase in people coming to visit their relatives. He waits to hear what it is Keith has to say, not wanting to interrupt when it already seems so hard for Keith to speak at all. It takes a few moments, but then Keith is speaking again.

The words he happens to blurt out are not at all what Lance had been expecting from him.

“I’m in love with you.”

Unlike with his previous sentence, wherein Keith’s words had been somewhat shaky and Keith had looked like he was debating between saying what he needed to say and simply running off, he says this with complete and utter surety, despite the fact he still won’t meet Lance’s eyes.

Lance’s mind blanks. On the one hand, he knows Keith is gay. He knows they spend a lot of time together, being neighbors and having so many mutual friends. He knows he’s flirted with Keith, as he flirts with everyone. But there’s still the part of him that is completely shell-shocked. Lance had never noticed this development, and he offhandedly wonders if any of their friends had. Does Shiro, Keith’s brother, know? If he knows, his girlfriend Allura knows, and Allura’s one of Lance’s best friends. Wouldn’t she have alerted him to the fact that Keith was into him romantically?

Then again, Allura has never been one to share other people’s secrets, as much of a gossip as she is, so Lance can’t blame her if she does know and didn’t tell him for privacy’s sake.

“...Lance? Say something?”

Lance snaps out of his thoughts and finds Keith staring right at him, now visibly uncomfortable. He’s rocking slowly back and forth on his heels and the expression on his face almost looks pained, and guilt twists Lance’s heart. He knows how hard it is for Keith to express himself, knows it must have taken all his courage to admit something like this to Lance. But when Lance tries to think up what to say, the first thing that comes to mind is ‘I can’t.’

Memories start to flood his mind of the last relationship he’d been in. His boyfriend had seemed like the perfect guy at first, charming and romantic and damn attractive. But as time passed, Lance had started to realize just how much of an asshole he really was. It had been a long and painful process of Lance telling himself that he simply had to wait it out, that his boyfriend did love him and was, deep down, willing to change himself for the better. But it wasn’t the truth, and when his friends had finally convinced him of that, he’d dumped the guy.

Only a year has passed since then, and Lance thinks of how he’d told himself romantic love just wasn’t for him, that having a lifelong partner simply wasn’t meant to be. He still believes it.

He catches Keith’s gaze once again, violet eyes boring into his skull, and turns and walks away.

  
  
  


Keith watches Lance walk away without a word, and feels a crushing weight settle in the pit of his stomach as the person he’s just confessed to disappears around the corner. It’s cold out, the Autumn breeze making him shiver in his short-sleeved diner polo. Keith, however, can’t really care less about the cold. In fact, he’ll be happy if the chilly air gets him sick. Then he can stay in bed for a week and not have to risk bumping into Lance in the halls of their apartment building or deal with Lance offering him a ride to work. He knows Lance still will; he’s too nice not to.

Instead of following Lance into the theatre staff parking lot, Keith turns on his heel and makes his way down the street, desperately trying to think of a place he can go where there’s no chance of running into Lance or any of their mutual friends. He doesn’t want to talk about the confession yet - he might never want to, actually. Especially not to anyone who’s just as close to Lance as he is. Or thought he was, at least. Now Keith’s not quite so sure.

He’d thought it’d go well. He’s seen Lance deal with confessions before; small ones, with girls at his work or from the roller skating rink their friend group goes to every Friday. Lance had turned them all down, but he had done it so gently that Keith doesn’t remember a single one of the girls walking away crying or without a smile on her face. Lance is kind, is always kind. Shiro had told him that confessing to Lance might make his feelings a little less like pressure in his chest, and he’d thought that confessing to Lance would be easy, even if he was turned down.

But it hadn’t been easy, and it hadn’t gone well, and Lance’s blank expression right before he’d left was stuck at the front of Keith’s mind, no matter how hard he tries to think of something, _anything_ , else.

Keith makes it two blocks down from the theatre when he finally stops to catch his breath. He hadn’t even realized he’d been running, and gasping at cold air makes his throat burn. After a moment, he straightens once again and rubs his gloved hands together for some semblance of warmth (they’re fingerless gloves; not exactly the best for Autumn weather) and only then does he notice he’s ended up right outside Daibazaal, a crummy bar he’s only been to once and had a rather unpleasant experience that included food poisoning and a bar fight.

Everyone in their friend group absolutely hates the place, for those two reasons and more. It’s the last place anyone would expect him to be, should they come looking. He heads inside.

The venue is dimly lit and smells strongly of cheap brandy, making Keith’s throat burn worse. It’s crowded - surprisingly, for the quality of the place - and Keith maneuvers through the clusters of tables filled with chattering people and finds an empty seat at the bar. There’s music playing in the background but it’s too mingled with conversation for Keith to understand the lyrics, so he opts to tune everything out. It’s not like he cares about anything going on in this place anyway.

When the bartender asks what he wants, he finds her warm smile to be a stark difference from the mood in the rest of the place. “Anything that’s alcohol free, please. I don’t have a ride home.”

“Coming right up sweetheart!” the woman chirps, sliding down the bar and returning a moment later with a fruit cocktail-smelling drink as pink as her hair. “This one has cherry, strawberry, and raspberry. And non-alcoholic drinks are free of charge, so don’t worry about the price.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

“Anytime!” Keith smiles slightly at the bartender’s obvious wink, and then she’s shuffling off to scold some of the other customers for being too rowdy. Keith cradles his drink in both hands and sips idly, letting his thoughts run rampant as the noise fades into the background.

What on Earth is he going to do, now that he’s confessed to Lance and been rejected? He won’t hope or pray that things will simply go right back to normal; he knows they won’t. He can’t get the image of Lance’s expression out of his head, the sight of Lance’s retreating back. Everything will be awkward now. They won’t be able to carpool to work anymore because the silences will be excruciating. They won’t be able to curl into each other’s side during movie night anymore because the small touches will sting like hot metal. They won’t be able to twirl around each other during Skate Night anymore because Keith’s head will be too full of ‘he doesn’t love me back.’

All in all, Keith suspects it’ll be far too difficult to be around Lance in the future. He can stick it out for group events- he can’t bear the thought of not hanging out with any of their friends, and even if he did stop hanging around Pidge and Hunk, Lance and Keith’s brother are friends too, so there’s no avoiding him completely. And he doesn’t _want_ to avoid Lance, not really. He’s conflicted on that matter. One part of him itches so badly to see Lance, to get to observe his little ticks, that it almost overshadows the part of him that wants nothing to do with Lance from here on out.

Keith’s so lost in thought that he very nearly falls off his barstool when deafening shouts drift over from the other side of the bar. He turns to observe a pair of men caught in a screaming match and shoving at each other roughly, other people egging them on. The bartender huffs and shoves through the crowd to grab them both by the ear and drag the two men outside. Keith turns back to his drink and finishes what’s left, leaving a small tip on the bar for the kind bartender who was so bright and cheerful, and goes to leave the noisy, bad-smelling establishment.

He’s barely a few feet out the door when his stomach starts to ache, bile rising up in his throat that he forces back down. He hasn’t even drank any alcohol, so he refuses to vomit over a little rejection. But then his vision starts to blur, and he starts to feel dizzy, and Keith collapses against a nearby building and curls up on the concrete, pulling his knees close to his chest as he fumbles for his cell phone in his back pocket.

Of all the things that could be happening in this exact point in time, getting drugged at a bar he hates was _not_ on Keith’s list of possibilities.

He’s going mostly on autopilot as he scrolls through his contact list, opens up Shiro’s contact, and presses call, putting the phone against his ear as it rings. It isn’t Shiro’s voice that answers, but Keith’s barely in the state of mind to care when Lance’s voice filters through.

  
  
  


“...Keith?”

Lance hadn’t been expecting Keith to call him. In fact, he’d expected the complete opposite. He’d expected Keith to avoid him completely for the foreseeable future. He was aware of how he must have hurt Keith’s feelings, walking away from his confession without even the decency of a reply. He hadn’t even gone back to offer Keith a ride home, just...left. And now he sits, curled up in a bright pink blanket in Allura’s apartment, sitting across from his friend on her bed, staring down at his phone like the Devil himself is calling and he doesn’t know what the hell to say.

(Which really isn’t that far off, Lance thinks, considering the general circumstance he’s in.)

Keith doesn’t say anything for a good five seconds or so, and Lance is already concerned from the fact he can hear Keith breathing hard on the other end of the line. “Keith? Are you okay?”

“Lance…” Keith says, sounding vaguely like he’s about to pass out. “I need Shiro...I feel sick.”

Lance is grateful the call is on speaker, because the moment Keith asks for his brother, Allura is on her feet and hurrying out the door to where Shiro is sitting in the living room, having given the two of them privacy for their chat about what had happened with Keith earlier.

“Shiro’s here, Allura’s getting him now. Where are you? Are you gonna be okay ‘till we get there?”

“I’m on...Kaltenecker? And Main...by Daibazaal…” Keith grounds out.

Lance feels his heart rate pick up, knowing there are only a couple of things that can come from Keith being near a bar by himself. “Alright. Can you stay on the phone? We’re gonna come pick you up, okay-”

The call suddenly ends, and Lance curses loudly, scrambling off the bed to join Allura and Shiro in the living room. Shiro turns to him with concern-ridden features. Lance frowns.

“Shiro, we need your car. Keith called me, I think he was trying to call you but clicked my contact instead. He said he’s sick, and I think he might have been at a bar.”

Allura is the first to react to that particular piece of information, a quiet gasp breaking the silence. “Oh God.”

  
  
  


Keith stares down at his phone, and can just make out the flashing red bar on the screen as his battery runs dry and his phone shuts down. He shoves it back in his pocket and moves to stand, the world swirling around him, and takes a few short steps forward, both hands on the wall for support. He focuses completely on putting one foot in front of the other, wanting to get closer to the street so it’s easier for Shiro to see him when he arrives.

What the fuck was he thinking, going to a bar he and his friends all avoid like the plague? Keith’s already regretting the (stupid) decision, and he’s not even more than ten feet from the place. And to end up drugged by some stranger when he wasn’t even drinking alcohol - first of all, _what the fuck was he doing_ to where he managed to miss someone putting drugs in his drink, and second of all, who the fuck was interested enough in him to drug him anyways?!

A voice calls out behind him, and then there are hands on his shoulders. “Hey, are you alright?”

The voice is calm, words slow, but immediately there are alarm bells sounding in Keith’s head, and he mumbles something about how he has people coming to pick him up, moving away. The hands on his shoulders cling tighter, and Keith all but collapses into the man, still dizzy.

“There’s no point in lying. You said it yourself - you don’t have a ride home.”

The alarm bells in Keith’s head are screaming now, but the drugs he was given have made his legs feel like jelly, and the world looks like a Photobooth App picture with the setting on Twirl. The man practically lifts him off the ground, his feet dragging uselessly, and there are shrill beeps and the sound of a car door opening, and then Keith is on his back on firm cushions, shadows from the streetlights outside and the body shoving him in playing across his range of sight.

He registers pain as his head bangs against the door on the other end of the car, registers cold as his arm presses against a metal seat belt buckle, registers hands in places they _really shouldn’t be_ , but no matter how hard his instincts are screaming at him to move, to _do something_ , Keith’s thoughts are fuzzy and his vision is so blurred he can hardly see at all.

When he goes to try and hit the man leaning over him, his hand meets open air, and then calloused fingers are wrapping around his wrist in a vice-like grip that makes his entire arm ache. There are sounds of shuffling and breathing and buckles, and out of nowhere, the shattering of glass and shouting voices that he vaguely recognizes as his brother and Allura. The relief is like a wave washing over him, and Keith lets himself relax as the weight on his legs disappears and Lance is leaning over him instead, blue eyes as clear as the light of day.

  
  
  


The sight of Keith close to passing out in the back seat of some pervert’s Sedan is enough to make Lance want to bash the bastard’s face in. However, Shiro and Allura already seem to be on that, so instead Lance cradles Keith in his arms and awkwardly scoots the two of them out of the vehicle. The man who had been attempting to rape Keith is now unconscious on the sidewalk, a black eye and bloody nose decorating his face, Allura’s hot pink stiletto planted firmly on his back to keep him down, should he wake up. Shiro’s prosthetic hand has blood on it, and he wipes it off on his shirt before turning to take Keith from Lance, holding his brother close.

“Keith, buddy. We’re here now.” Shiro says softly, a whirlwind of emotions playing on his face.

“I think he’s finally passed out,” Lance says when Keith doesn’t answer. “He’s definitely drugged, that guy wouldn’t have stood a chance if Keith were completely conscious.”

Shiro nods. “We need to get him to the hospital. We don’t know if the drugs will leave his system on their own or not.”

“You two go ahead,” Allura says sternly, gesturing to Shiro’s car. “I will stay here to make sure this pervert does not go anywhere until the police arrive.”

“I’ll come get you as soon as we get Keith admitted, alright?” Shiro promises.

Lance offers to drive, and Shiro climbs into the backseat with Keith in his lap, the latter breathing a little too lightly for their comfort. Thankfully, they’re in the part of the city where traffic is all but nonexistent, and they make it to the nearby hospital in less than five minutes. There’s a small crowd in the E.R. when they walk in, but a nurse walks up to them almost immediately, asking what the problem is. They relay their theory (not a theory, really, but it’s not like they have proof) that Keith was drugged by a man at a bar, and the nurse ushers them over to a gurney, yelling over the chaos for someone to help her.

Lance and Shiro watch as Keith is whisked away by a group of nurses, and step outside to get away from the chaos. Shiro’s phone starts to ring, and Lance listens to a brief conversation with whom he assumes is Allura from the way Shiro seems to deflate when he picks up. When he hangs up, Shiro turns to Lance with a half-smile. “The police arrived and arrested the guy. One of the officers offered Allura a ride, so she said to just stay here with Keith.”

The two of them carefully maneuver around bustling nurses and injured patients in the E.R. until they find the waiting room, and plop down in the first empty seats they see. Lance curls up in his chair with his knees up against his chest, the noise around them seemingly amplifying until the chatter and groaning and pained conversations are deafening in his ears, though still not enough to drown out the thoughts in his head telling him that all of this is his fault.

Hardly an hour has passed since he got off work and met Keith outside the theatre, since Keith confessed to him, since he walked away and abandoned Keith and more or less pushed Keith to go and fuck up in the worst way. And Keith hadn’t even drank in that bar; he hadn’t smelled even the slightest bit of alcohol. It’s Lance’s fault. All of it. It’s his fault Keith was hurt, his fault Keith had gone to a _bar_ when everyone knew he hated them, his fault Keith had been zoning out bad enough to get roofied and almost raped. Lance doesn’t want to think of what might have happened if Keith hadn’t called someone the second he started feeling sick.

Lance feels a hand on his shoulder, and Shiro is watching him with that look in his eyes that has everyone joking that he’s a Dad. “Keith’s going to be alright.”

Lance nods slowly, but the ache doesn’t go away. Shiro notices this. “Hey,” he says, drawing Lance’s gaze back to him. “What’s going on in that head of yours right now? Talk to me.”

“...this is my fault.”

Shiro sighs. “How so?”

“This afternoon...Keith confessed to me.” Lance says, curling in on himself a little tighter, avoiding eye contact with Shiro. Surely he’d known Keith liked him. “It was hard for him. He was red and shaking and couldn’t look me in the eye. And I didn’t even say anything back. Just up and walked away.”

Lance doesn’t look at Shiro; he knows what he’ll see if he meets those grey eyes. He can’t bear the look of disappointment he’s sure to find. “Keith doesn’t drink. He never goes to bars, not unless the rest of us are going. And it’s _Keith!_ He had to have been completely out of it to not notice someone spiking his drink!”

“Lance…” Shiro says quietly, softly. “...why did you just walk away? That’s not like you at all.”

“I...I just couldn’t stop thinking about how my last relationship went. What if ends up the same? I can’t do all that again, not when it fucked me up so badly.”

Silence falls, and after a good few beats, Lance turns to find Shiro staring at him with the most deadpan expression he’s ever seen on the man. “...what?”

“Lance, you know I love you, but you’re honestly being _such_ an idiot right now.”

Lance must have looked positively confused, because Shiro rubs a hand against his temple and sighs deeply, situating himself so his whole body is turned to face Lance in his chair.

“Keith isn’t the guy you dated last time. You know Keith, he’s nothing like that jerk. He wouldn’t try to make you do anything outside your comfort zone. If you said you wanted to take things slow, I know he would agree.” Shiro says. “From what I can tell, Keith’s never really had romantic feelings for anyone before, and if he has, he’s never done anything about it. That’s probably why confessing was hard for him- he just had no idea what he was doing. To be honest, I bet he’d be relieved if you said you’d rather not rush things.”

“He probably doesn’t wanna go out with me now, not after I rejected him.” Lance says solemnly. 

“But you didn’t reject him. You were unsure, and yeah, you handled it terribly. But if you go in and explain it all to Keith, I know for a fact he wouldn’t hold it against you.”

Shiro wraps an arm around Lance’s shoulders, and the warmth is comforting, the noise lowering just a bit in volume. Lance nods slowly and leans into Shiro. A few moments later, Allura arrives, curling into Shiro’s other side. The officer who drove her there remains, sitting across from the three of them and asking simple questions about what they know of Keith’s predicament. They answer as much as they can. The officer is understanding, and doesn’t push them, taking each question slowly until a doctor is calling out for ‘the family of Keith Kogane.’

Shiro bolts up from his seat, and the doctor offers a small smile. “He was given Rohypnol. We gave him some medicine to force his body to throw up, so the drugs should be out of his system. He’s unconscious now, set up with an IV drip. He might not wake up until tomorrow. He’s going to be fine.” Everyone lets out a collective sigh of relief. “We’ll keep him overnight so we can see if he has any memory loss or prolonged symptoms when he wakes up.”

“Thank you very much.” Shiro says, shaking the doctor’s hand. “Can we see him?”

“I’m afraid visiting hours are over, so only family members are allowed in. But you all may return at 8 AM tomorrow. He may even be awake by then.” the doctor says, pulling Shiro aside to go over the necessary paperwork that needs filling out. Lance moves into Shiro’s empty seat so he can sit next to Allura, and closes his eyes when he feels her hands in his hair.

“Shiro scolded me for walking away when Keith confessed to me, but it was so nice and helpful that it didn’t even feel like a scolding at all.” Lance complains.

“That sounds just like him. Why, did you _want_ him to scold you harshly?” Allura asks, tugging at the hairs on the nape of his neck. “Shiro just wants what is best for both you _and_ Keith.”

“Yeah…”

“I’m going to stay here in case Keith wakes up before morning. He hates hospitals.” Shiro says  as he walks back over. “You two should go home and get some sleep, I’ll text you if he wakes up before you get here tomorrow. You can take my car.”

“Alright. Let us know if anything happens, and if you need anything, call me.“ Allura replies.

Shiro promises, and Lance looks away as they share a kiss. He stands from his chair as Shiro is called to talk to the officer once again, and he and Allura leave together. Allura drives, and the ride home is quiet; they’re both tired and neither of them have anything to say. Lance stares out the window as they pass his theatre, the place where Keith confessed to him only two hours or so before. He regrets how he acted, and what it brought forth.

But he’s going to fix it, _has_ to fix it. He has to apologize and explain everything to Keith, because if he doesn’t, the guilt will eat away at him until he can no longer look at Keith without aching.

Lance doesn’t get a call until almost ten the next morning, and when he scrambles to pick up the phone and answer, it’s Allura on the other line, not Shiro. She says she’s going to visit Shiro and bring him breakfast, and asks if Lance would like to come along. He agrees. He hasn’t been able to find sleep since the night before, and anything would be better than sitting at home waiting for news of Keith’s condition.

Lance has just barely finished getting dressed (not bothering to shower or even wash his face in his rush to be ready) when his phone is buzzing with a text informing him Allura’s parked outside his apartment complex, and he bypasses the elevator for the first time in ages, flying down the stairs and into Shiro’s pearly white Prius where Allura sits behind the wheel. She smiles softly at him when he slides into the passenger seat, and he does his best to mirror it, though he can tell from her lingering gaze that his attempted smile hasn’t convinced her he’s feeling any better.

Much like the previous night, they spend the drive in silence, aside from the almost inaudible music from the radio that was already on when Allura arrived. Lance leans against the window, his face cold and aching where it touches the glass, and watches the familiar scenery pass him by. He really isn’t paying attention to any of it. There’s nothing new to see, and somehow the bright sun in the sky and the promise of a cloudless day only serves to dampen his spirits.

Allura pulls into a parking space a little ways away from the hospital’s guest entrance, and they walk in together, waiting patiently in line to check in. They end up not needing to, since Shiro meets them in the lobby and, with a nurse’s permission, leads them through a few scattered hallways to Keith’s room. Lance offhandedly notices that the room number is 69, but he’s too deep in worry and anxiety to even laugh at the happenstance. Allura and Shiro chat in hushed voices off to the side, and Lance turns to the window that peers into room 69.

The room itself is dark, the curtains pulled closed, with only the machines around the bed and the lights from the hallway to illuminate the bed. Keith is still asleep, tubes attached to his arms and blankets tucked under his chin. He looks peaceful. It makes Lance ache, and he doesn’t tear his eyes away from Keith’s sleeping form until he feels a hand on his shoulder. Shiro’s gaze is on him, and Lance steps aside, taking a seat next to Allura on the stiff couch up against the wall.

A nurse wanders over, talks quietly to Shiro, steps into the hospital room to check over Keith’s vitals and change out his IV bag. Keith is unresponsive throughout the ordeal, and the only thing that indicates he’s alive is the slight, almost unnoticeable rise and fall of his chest and the fluctuating lines on the heart monitor. The nurse finishes her checkup and returns, closing the door silently behind her, and gives their group a look of sympathy before hurrying off down the hall.

  
  
  


When Keith opens his eyes, the world is blurry, and for a moment he’s scared he’s still in the back of that Sedan, that Lance’s face was just a hallucination and he hadn’t been saved at all. But then his surroundings slowly come into focus, and after a bit of frantic blinking, he easily recognizes the hospital room he’s in. There’s the familiar beeping of a heart monitor to his right and he turns his head to look at the colored lines on the screen. Just beyond the monitor is a window peering out into the hospital hallway, and Keith registers eyes on him.

His brother, Shiro, metal hand pressed up against the glass, face pinched in worry. Keith sees the recognition on Shiro’s face, sees him speak to someone else in the hallway, sees him waving at someone he can’t see. Then a nurse is speedwalking over, coming into Keith’s room. But all he can focus on is Lance, standing on the other side of the window, staring at him and looking like he’s about to break down crying.

“Keith,” There’s a gentle voice speaking to him, and Keith turns to find the nurse standing next to him, her hair dyed a deep purple that makes her seem much less bland and impersonal than a normal nurse. “My name is Acxa, I’m your nurse for today. How are you feeling?”

“...like I got hit in the head with a brick.” Keith replies, his mouth tasting gross as he speaks. He gestures vaguely at his face. “It feels like I’ve got a migraine or something”

“Well, there was a bump on the back of your skull when we were examining you last night. Do you remember how you got it?”

Keith thinks back to the night before. His memories are hazy, glossy, but still there. He remembers the cheerful pink-haired bartender who gave him his drink on the house, remembers the chaos in the back that had made him want to leave, remembers his phone dying in the middle of his call to Lance. Remembers the exact texture of the seats in the stranger’s car. Remembers muted panic and shattered glass and Lance’s blue eyes.

“Oh, yeah. I hit my head when- when I was in the car. Got pushed into the door.”

Acxa gives him a look that Keith can’t place, but she doesn’t comment on his reasoning, instead turning to her clipboard to write something down before turning back to him. She asks him a few more questions: if he’s in any pain, how he slept, if he needs anything.

He immediately asks to see Shiro, and Acxa nods, stepping out of the room with a promise to come back for a full story on the incident from the night before. Keith watches her go, twiddles his thumbs in his lap while Acxa talks briefly to Shiro. And then Shiro’s coming into the room. He stands in the doorway for a good moment, as if in shock, and Keith figures being in a hospital in itself must not be enjoyable for him. But then Shiro’s hurrying over to the chair Acxa had placed by the bed and gently, ever so gently, pulls Keith to his warm chest.

“God, I’m so glad you’re okay.” Shiro whispers, almost inaudibly.

Keith sighs and tucks his head into the crook of Shiro’s neck, relishing his brother’s hold. He tries not to think about how stressed Shiro must have been. Too much has happened in their lives for the situation _not_ to have stressed Shiro into a panic, though he knows Allura must have been there to support him and make sure his brother didn’t crack and crumble standing on the other side of that glass window all night. Because he knows Shiro did.

After a good minute or so has passed, Shiro pulls away just enough to make sure Keith’s IV tubes aren’t being pinched or tangled. Then Keith can see the expression on his face, the Dad Expression he wears when something goes wrong (whether it’s Keith’s fault or not) and he’s torn between trying to help the person in the fray get over what happened or just avoid mentioning the event to keep from dredging up any traumatic relivings of it.

The stern expression fades for a moment, replaced by an easy smile that would calm Keith’s nerves if he didn’t know what was lying underneath. “How are you feeling?” Shiro asks.

“Shitty,” Keith answers lightly. “But I think it’s more an aftereffect of being stuck with needles and drugged than anything else. Honestly, I just wanna go home.”

“I know. The doctor said you should be able to go home later this afternoon, they just have to make sure all the rohypnol is out of your system. There’s no other reason to keep you here.”

“Makes sense.”

Silence stretches between them, and Keith shifts to look up at his brother, catching on to the look of concern and worry and seriousness that had previously been hidden.

“You don’t have to, but if you’re comfortable...could you tell me what happened, exactly?”

Keith hesitates, only for a moment - this is his brother, his kind, caring brother, who would likely find some way to blame himself for what happened if Keith didn’t convince him otherwise. But it would only be worse if he didn’t explain, if he didn’t fill the space the anonymity had carved into Shiro’s consciousness by worrying over his little brother.

“Well…” he starts.

  
  
  


Lance doesn’t watch the doctor check up on Keith, doesn’t watch Shiro’s reunion with Keith. He doesn’t feel it’s his right to observe these moments that should, by all means, be private. But he can’t bring himself to leave the small hallway with the glass window looking in on it all.

It’s partly out of concern for Allura. He doesn’t want to leave her alone in the hospital, knowing the last time she’d been at one for anything other than picking up Keith in the parking lot was when her father had died. He sits in the chair next to her, holding her hand in his own while she leans back against the wall behind them, her eyes closed. They ground each other while they wait, and Lance is glad she’s there. He might not have been able to handle it if it were only Keith and Shiro.

But it’s also partly because while Lance is definitely terrified of his impending chat with Keith, he can’t stand the possibility of not being there if something happens. Or if Keith asks for him.

Who is he kidding? There’s no way Keith’s gonna ask for him, no matter what Shiro says.

“Keith’s asking for you, Lance.”

Lance’s head snaps up at Shiro’s voice, and there he is, one hand on the door handle to Keith’s hospital room as if he was scared to close it all the way, looking at Lance with an expression he hopes is encouragement. He stands on shaky feet and nods jerkily, shuffling past Shiro and into the room.

The steady beeping of the heart monitor only adds to Lance’s growing tension, despite the fact it should really be consolation that Keith is alive and well (although, alive and well doesn’t mean Keith is actually _okay_ , so what is there to be consoled about?). Lance doesn’t look at Keith, just shuts the door behind him and stands there, the fingernails of his right hand digging into the skin of his left arm. There’s the sound of bedsheets rustling, and someone sighing.

“Hey.” Keith says, sounding a little hoarse and a lot tired.

“Hey.” Lance parrots.

Silence, aside from Keith’s heart monitor. Lance releases his arm and shifts from one foot to the other. Keith picks at a fraying thread on the white blanket draped over him.

“...so…” Lance says, a little too loud, a little too desperate. “How are you feeling?”

Keith shrugs dismissively. “Tired, but not bad, I guess. I’ve definitely seen worse shit than this.”

Lance knows Keith is trying to joke, to lighten the mood, but the joke falls short in midst of the tension surrounding the two of them, the tension of Keith’s situation and Lance’s role in it. The beep of Keith’s heart monitor once again becomes the only noise in the room, and Lance leans against the wall by the door, still reluctant to meet Keith’s eyes.

“What happened...it wasn’t your fault, you know.” Keith’s words cut through the quiet.

Lance’s answer is immediate, without hesitation. “It was.”

“No, it wasn’t!” Keith insists, stern. “Did you act like an ass walking away from an very difficult confession without so much as a goodbye? Yes, you did. But is it your fault I got roofied and bumped in the head? Fuck no. It’s my fault for going to a fucking bar by myself, and not watching my shit like everyone and their mother tells you to since the moment you’re old enough to listen.”

Lance can’t hold back a laugh, though it’s less out of humor and more out of irony for the fact that Keith seems to be ignoring a principle fact: “You wouldn’t have gone there at all if not for me.” He says.

“Maybe. But blaming yourself for it isn’t helping me at all, and it isn’t going to fix what happened between you and me. So what’s the fucking point?”

And honestly, Lance has nothing to counter that.

“Blaming yourself for what happened isn’t going to help me. It’s just going to make you miserable, and then everyone else around you will be miserable too, because they all care about you too much to ignore your misery. And yes, that actually does apply to me too.”

“You mean you’d still wanna hang out around me after I basically shit on your confession?” Lance asks, almost incredulously.

Keith is smiling. “I wasn’t planning on it, at first. I was actually trying to figure out if I _could_ avoid you for the rest of my life. But honestly? I don’t want to.” Lance must be gaping, because Keith giggles, fucking _giggles_ , and Lance’s heart skips a beat. “I thought about it, and I don’t want our friendship to fall to pieces just because you don’t love me back the same way.”

“Yeah, about that…” Lance starts, stopping Keith before he can say more. “Shiro and I talked last night, while you were...sick. And I kind of realized that I walked away because I was scared, not because I don’t love you back.”

Keith says nothing, clearly waiting for Lance to continue, so he does.

“You know how bad my ex was, right? I’m pretty sure I told you those stories.” Keith nods. “Well, when I finally broke up with him, I pretty much wrote off romance. I decided it wasn’t for me, ‘cause I didn’t wanna go through that again with anyone else. So when you confessed to me, I started thinking about him and how terrible it was and how terrible I felt and I just...I lumped you in with him, and that was really wrong of me, because you’re _nothing like him_. I’m really sorry.”

The heart monitor’s beeping fills the room again, and Lance notices it’s the tiniest bit faster now, the colored lines on it the tiniest bit taller, and he stares at the monitor with concern, wondering if that’s something to be concerned about, but then Keith’s clearing his throat to get his attention. He glances over to Keith, who gestures toward the chair positioned next to the bed, and Lance takes the cue to sit down, hands clutching tightly to his knees.

“So...how about we start over?” Keith suggests, looking oddly patient for a guy Lance has seen jumping into fights without a moment’s hesitation.

“Yeah, let’s start over.” Lance agrees. This is what he wanted: the chance to make it up to Keith.

Keith clears his throat again, this time for show, and tucks a strand of ebony hair behind on ear before turning back to Lance with that violet gaze, without a hint of hesitation or nervousness.

“Lance,” He says quietly, pausing for just a second, as if to purposefully build tension. “I’m in love with you.”

It’s the exact same phrase, the exact same tone, yet somehow it feels so much more intense, so much more _moving_. This time, Lance feels his face turning pink. This time, Lance feels butterflies in his stomach. This time, Lance doesn’t leave Keith hanging, and instead answers as quickly and as honestly as Keith had spoken.

“I’m in love with you too.”

**Author's Note:**

> #sorrynotsorry
> 
> Also, the bartender is supposed to be Ezor!! Her name wasn't actually stated in-plot so I didn't put her in the character tags.
> 
> Special thanks to my friend [Reese](http://archiveofourown.org/users/ciitadel/) , because without her expert medical knowledge, all of the hospital stuff would be complete bullshit lol. Another special thanks to my friend [Viv](http://archiveofourown.org/users/viraseii), who betaed!! With very little prior warning too, I might add ; w ; sorry


End file.
